Starstruck by The Black Lotus - Atari Falcon version

[makrisj]

Well, good for atari!!! no blitter but still impressive!

[EvilFranky]

@makrisj The Falcon does have a blitter.

[makrisj]

@EvilFranky good to know, thanks!

[karadok666]

@makrisj The Falcon comes with a blitter. But what has a blitter to do with 3D grafix? :D :D

[SHINOBHS]

GREAT STUFF

[EskyHunter]

"Requires the CT60/63 68060 accelerator expansion board to run." -> Are you sure? Maybe it would be able to run on my 68040 accelerated Falcon too?! (32 Mhz 68040 CPU, 50 Mhz DSP, 48 MB FastRAM) O.o

[EvilFranky]

@EskyHunter Well I'm fairly sure as I believe it requires some specific 060 instructions on the Atari version. But I could be wrong :)

[EskyHunter]

@EvilFranky Ah, okay! I had a try with it on the 040 but I was nut lucky. :( But I ran the Ocean Machine demo successful on the 040 Falcon. :)

[EvilFranky]

@EskyHunter Really? Excellent! How well did it run?

[EskyHunter]

@EvilFranky: Well, some secenes can´t be called smooth, looking more like a slide-show. O.o I will make a video of it. Be prepared. :-)

[EskyHunter]

@EvilFranky: I made a video of the ocean machine demo running on my 68040 Falcon. You´ll find it in my YouTube video collection. :-)

[porcorosso81]

Nothing wrong with comparing machines, but it is highly disturbing when it s done by fanboys who have ZERO knowledge about the other hardware.

As a die-hard Amiga fan, I can honestly say that the Falcon is a great machine. The 68030, DSP and chunky graphics really do put it above an A1200. It's fascinating to see how a machine from 1992 can play MP3 files in full quality in its original configuration .

I'm also pretty sure the DSP can be used as a graphics accelerator, similar to a shader.

[deepblue69uk]

@porcorosso81 Nice to see someone talking some sense in this comment section. Despite spending my formative years tinkering and playing games etc on my Atari STe I really do think that it is about time that these daft arguments come to an end. The ignorance is indeed astounding. In the present day WHO CARES!?!? Amiga, Atari, Mac, PC-DOS, they are all fun to use and muck about with. I just enjoy my hobby, stuff these daft arguements!

[porcorosso81]

@deepblue69uk

I have no problem arguing about technical facts as long as they are grounded in reality.

Saying the Atari ST(e) is better than an Amiga 500 is wrong.

Saying the Amiga 1200 is better than an Atari Falcon is wrong.

The ST is basically the only Atari machine I dislike. All other machines are quite interesting. Like the Atari 2600 and 800 (BOTH predecessors of the Amiga architecture), the Lynx, Falcon and the Jaguar. These are all interesting machines, which have a charm to me.

[deepblue69uk]

@porcorosso81 The STe did have a slightly faster processor though. He he he. :-) No seriously, I've gotten to the point that I don't care now. I do love the possiblities that are open to me now with my custom built PC and I've always had a massive enthusiasm for anything computer related...but its something that has irked me greatly this daft 'oneupmanship' over what essentially is just a piece of silicon, precious metals and plastic. Meh!

[EskyHunter]

@deepblue69uk The MegaSTE was slightly faster (16 Mhz), but the 1040STE and 520STE were still using 8 Mhz 68000.

[deepblue69uk]

@EskyHunter I know. I meant that STe had a slightly faster processor than the Amiga 500 which ran at 7.09Mhz while the STe, ST, STF and STFM ran at 8mhz.

[xnonsuchx]

@deepblue69uk - To be fair, Commodore-Amiga purposely lowered the CPU clock to simplify video synchronization w/o using multiple clocks. It woulda been nice if they gave users the option of using a video-synced clock vs. a full speed CPU clock if they didn't need the video sync...the only reason some games perform a little better on an ST. I only really got a ST because of the built-in MIDI (as MANY musicians did).

[EskyHunter]

@porcorosso81 Yes, that´s true. Rebelsoft made use of the DSP to speed up the 3D graphics. There was also the Apex Media graphics package with a morphing editor. It used the DSP as well.

[JohanKH]

Silly to fight Amiga vs Atari up to date. Both are from the golden era of computers and electronics and I doubt we will ever get back :(. Time will tell.. Most exciting stuff now seem to be javascript applications for the iPhone .. Great demo, great Atari version, great music, great group, great scene.

[blade004]

I owned and used Amiga's from 1990 till the year 2000 and then after stopping for about 6 years i got my A1200 030@50 fired up again :)

But as big of an Amiga fan that i am and have always been i will concede and accept the fact that the Falcon was superior to the Amiga 1200 and i realised this at the time of the Falcon's release, actually so much so that i shit myself from what could have been some really stiff competition from Atari!

The Falcon was a great machine.

[deepblue69uk]

@blade004 Suprising yet pleasing to hear that from an Amiga fan. Fact is that as I mentioned in another comment I made here, this bickering is just childish and daft. Via emulation I am discovering things about many systems that I didn't get a chance to experience when I was younger. I did get to play with an A500 and an A1200 and they were fun to use. Still got a soft spot for my Atari 1040 STe though which I can't bring myself to chuck out or give away. he he.

[artemusprine]

Can I be an Amiga and an Atari fan? I used Amigas for years, but also loved the Jaguar. I think this demo is just awesome.

[karadok666]

@artemusprine yes, you can be an Amiga and Atari fan. I am so why you not? ;)

[gorzyga]

Atari Falcon has a chunky pixel graphics - Amiga's AGA chipset has a bitplanes, so in most cases is nessesary to convert each frame of video from "chunky" to "planar". Chip memory (graphics memory of internal chipset of Amiga) is slow, so you can't have so smooth graphics like on Falcon. Pitty that this demo doesn't use graphic card on Amiga.

[EvilFranky]

@gorzyga Thank you for posting some factual information, it's like a breath of fresh air! :-)

As a matter of fact this demo uses the Falcon's 8-Bit mode and borrows the Amigas chunky to planar routine (slightly modified) to keep it as close to original as possible. Im unsure if the 8-Bit chunky to planer routine is faster or slower than the 16-bit chunky mode.

[gorzyga]

@EvilFranky I don't know which mode mode is fasteron JIL, but on Amiga C2P routine eates very much CPU time. In case when 68040/68060 is available good coder could make this procedure runs in CPU cache and then it works much faster.

I compared Falcon version and you have a right - in robot scene there are added light effects, which are not available on Amiga. But still Amiga is the best ;-)

ps. sorry for my bad english ;)

[surfitlive]

Only difference I see are the birds at the end There are a few more than in the Amiga Version!!

Everything else looks equal.

Other than that, this version is either blurryied by transfering to Utube, so it looks smoother, or it used a flicker fixer/deinterlacer in HW. Any insights??

[EvilFranky]

As already stated in the info section, the robotic spider part has additional lighting effects.

I didn't capture the video, it was taken from another website and recorded direct from a real Falcon's video output.

It's smoother than Amiga as the 060 accelerator on the Falcon is superior and again the DSP takes all audio strain away from the CPU.

[hankillo1]

Wrong,I have an A4000 with apolo 060/66 mgz, and the demo in my computer is faster than this.

But it should be thanks to the 32 bits bus and its 25 mgz bus speed.

[EvilFranky]

How the hell can you tell that your Amiga is running faster than this video?! This had already been live recorded from a Falcons video out then compressed and killed due to YouTube compression.

Considering your 060 has to process the audio and push all video data out via your chipset BUS which is not 25 Mhz.

[EvilFranky]

Falcon is doing all audio decrunching on the DSP, processing all calculations on a 50Mhz BUS using SDRAM (NOT EDO) and then pushing the results out via a FASTER chipset BUS (even though its only 16-bit) than your Amiga!

Take off the blinkers please, stop being a typically blind sighted Amiga fanboy and appreciate all machines for their merits. The Falcon was awesome.

[surfitlive]

@EvilFranky OK, don't know why I couldn't see this before but I did side by side compare &found this; Opening credits; scroll different speed/position to backdrop Crazy Spastic Text; different text/pages/color *Floating girl; zoomed out view,machine in center *Robot crawl; lighting/shading when on wall Mountains; coloration? Scrolling 'explaination' text; uses a different font. *Neuron display; signal traveling to pulsating tips *Ending; More crows WISHLIST; More Cowbell in music ( ;

[jci10]

I smell major hardware hacks as the Falcon still had a simple 16-bit bus: "The Falcon's performance was not as great as it could have been, mostly due to Atari Corp.'s decision to put the 32-bit 68030 microprocessor on a 16-bit data bus. " - Wikipedia.

[EvilFranky]

Did you bother to read the video description?

[hankillo1]

@jci10 Yes,I dont understand how a company could release a 32 bit computer with a 16 bit data bus becouse this way the machine is not a 32 bit computer at all.

Whith a 16 bit data bus you would never mount a PPC card for example.

[EvilFranky]

Thats twice you've mentioned PPC cards...WE DONT CARE. It makes no difference whether its an 8 bit or 128 bit bus all computational tasks are performed on the card itself as this contains the CPU, RAM, and OS once copied over!

The CT60 essentially uses the Falcon as one big expansion card containing DSP, VIDEL, IDE, SCSI, SOUND MATRIX etc.

And for the 1,000,000th time, the A1200 was the Falcons direct competition NOT the A4000!

[moskitokemado]

Well, that shows that falcon030 has a better 060 accelerator card than A1200 and nothing more.

You say that falcon was the direct competition of the A1200 ,maybe it was, but it is very easy release a more powerfull machine that nearly costs double

[EvilFranky]

@moskitokemado It did not cost double. Sick and tired now of repeating myself to you insanely biased Amiga fan boys. Go get your facts right before posting nonsense. The A1200 in the UK was released at £399 the base model Falcon was £499. For the extra £100 you got a DSP, 68030, SCSI, MIDI etc.

[ancalimonungol]

@EvilFranky tjose DSP, 68030, SCSI, MIDI probably were in the extra £500 ;) You didn't get an Amiga when you bought it.

[hankillo1]

@EvilFranky Well take it easy , dont be angry , we are talking and giving diferents points of wiew about two machines ,thats all.-and coming back to the theme, with that 100 pounds you could buy a 68030/25 mgz and 4mb of fast ram(6 mb of ram with the chip memory)

[EvilFranky]

@hankillo1 It is not a point of view. We are talking about facts and you are stating information which is untrue!

So you think back in 1992 you could buy a 68030 accelerator and 4MB of FatsRAM for an Amiga for £100? Not a chance.

[hankillo1]

@EvilFranky Well I am tired of this.Talking about facts, now the most powerfull a1200 and a4000 can easy shit on any falcon ,and that is the real fact.

[EvilFranky]

@hankillo1 You are a boring biased Amiga troll.

Yes you are right any top of the range Amiga with PPC and PCI GFX is going to be more powerful than a Falcon with an 060, no one is disputing that.

But my original point (and the reason you started posting in the first place!) is still TRUE, Falcon version of this demo is better than Amigas!!!!

[moskitokemado]

yes , you re right , but i am not a troll

[EvilFranky]

@moskitokemado I wasn't calling you a troll.

[shiroidebukujira]

Considering a "the most powerful" A1200 or A4000 (I'm not sure why the A3000 is disregarded there.. You can get a CyberStormPPC + PCI bridge in there too right?) have real 3D hardware, some generic-but-modernish sound hardware, a PPC.. The Amiga motherboard is basically just supplying power..

As EvilFranky says below, this is better than the Amiga version.. that isn't really a dis against the Amiga. Chipram is called "Chip-Ram" for a reason and the Falcon has a DSP.

[karadok666]

@hankillo1 It is NOT a fact :D

I love my Amigas and my Falcon but i can not do 16 Tracks hard disk recording with Amiga like i do with Cubase Audio 16 on the Falcon. The sound system of the Falcon is just better. On the other hand the Amiga has more games.

[deepblue69uk]

@hankillo1 Sorry but you are indeed incorrect. However, does it really matter? It is over 20 years ago when these machines were produced. The Atari Falcon is technologically better than an Amiga 1200 but an Amiga 1200 wipes the floor with an Atari STe for example. I don't care! I have so many wonderful memories and still get enjoyment out of the real machines and emulators I use now. Just have fun and enjoy your hobby. Fun is what it is all about.

[blade004]

@EvilFranky Shit i paid at least $550 AU for my 030@50 for my Amiga 1200 so that would have equated to about 300 pounds, and that was in 1997!!!!!! let alone 1992!

@hankillo please stop being silly mate, i used Amiga's from 1990 till 2000 but despite that i KNOW the Falcon is superior to an Amiga 1200 !! Yeah sure, if you upgrade an A1200 or 4000 is powerful enough but dollar for dollar and as "stock" machines the Falcon wipes the floor.

[EvilFranky]

From what I have read the A4000's 25Mhz BUS was only for CPU -> FAST RAM, and all chipset access were still at 7.xx MHZ due to timings...and in this instance the Falcons 16bit BUS at 16 MHZ is faster!

Hence VGA performance on the Falcon being far better! CT60 BUS is 50Mhz and 060's now clocking past the 100Mhz mark, plus SDRAM and the possibility of overclocking the Falcon BUS to 25Mhz = FAR BETTER 060 card than ANY Amiga at the moment!

[EskyHunter]

@hankillo1 Yes, that is true. The Falcon was a 16 bit machine only. :( But my Falcon is a real 32 bit one because I have fittet the Afterburner040 inside. :)

[EvilFranky]

@jci10 Just for the record...the CT60 is a plug and play expansion card. Hardly a major hardware 'hack' as you so nicely put it.

[EvilFranky]

Yes this is for real :-)

Please search Google for the official CT60 accelerator website. There is a lot more info an benchmarks there.

Glad you enjoyed the video!

[rvounik]

is this for real? :) that is impressive.. never knew about 060 for falcon.